Snakes and other lizards are the last thing that most people think about when they hear the word investing. Most people will think about stocks and real estate. This does not the change the fact that some people make a lot of money investing in snakes and you could to. It is possible to become a millionaire by investing in snakes.
Investing is snakes is an active pursuit. It is not an option if you are looking for a passive investment strategy. If you invest in snakes you will need to feed them, care for them and provide them with an environment suitable for breeding. This is not hard and does not have to be very labor intensive. But it needs to be done and the more work you put into it the more money you can earn from your investments. Investing in snakes is a long time commitment. It is not a short term strategy.
- If you are looking for a passive investment strategy then snakes is not for you. In this case i recommend that you choose to invest in dividend stocks instead.
- If you are looking for a short term investment strategy then snakes inst for you either. In this case i recommend that you try day trading.
- If you are unable to commit to caring for the snakes you have invested in for several years then snakes are not for you. It often takes between 1- 3 years before you see any return on your investment. If you are uncertain of whether you are willing to devote years of your life to invest in snakes and are looking for a faster way to earn money then I recommend that you learn how to day trade instead. That way you will not be responsible for any lives. You can trade the days you want to and rest the days you want to. You will not have any snakes to care for.
Only invest in snakes if you have the passion to succeed. You are investing in living creatures and this gives you a lot more responsibility then you get when you invest in other things.
Regular snakes and investment grade snakes
You can make money keeping and breeding almost any snake but not all snakes are suitable as investments. Most regular snakes will give you a very low return and you will need to breed very large amounts of snakes to be able to make money. This is not the case for investment grade snakes. Investment grade snaked are expensive snakes that have rare and unusual traits that allow them to produce offspring that will be a lot more valuable than that of a regular snake. The value of investment grades snakes will usually go down over time.
The first few specimens of a new color morph will often be very expensive but the price will go down as breeders produce more and more of this morph. A new morph might sell for as much as USD 100 000. The price for the same morph might be as little as USD 3-5000 ten years later. You do not make money from investing in snakes if you do not breed them. The value of investment snakes in due to the profit you can make selling their offspring.
How much money can you earn?
There is no limit to how much money you can earn from investing in and breeding snaked. It all depends on how many snakes you got. The more snakes you keep and breed the more money you can earn. The more exclusive snakes you keep the more you can earn.
It takes a couple of years before you are able to get a return on your investment in snakes. Exactly how long depends on what species you have chosen to invest in. Different species needs to reach different ages before they become sexual mature. You can also sell the snake for a profit before it reaches sexual maturity. A snake is worth more money the closer to sexual maturation it gets.
When the snake gets sexual mature you will be able to start breeding it and earn money. How much you can earn depends on the exact genetics of the color morph. Some color morphs breeds true. IE all babies will be the same color morph. Provided both parents are the same morph. Other morphs will produce varied off spring where some will be the morph you want, some will be het (carriers) and some will miss the desired gene completely. A morph that breeds true will earn you more money in the first clutch but the value of the snake will also go down faster as more snakes will hit the market faster.
You can usually recoup your investment from the first or first two clutches. Snakes produced after this will be profit. But how much you earn will also depend on whether you sell all your babies or if you keep some for future breeding.
It might be possible to create even more exclusive and expensive snakes by breeding different morphs with each other. You can earn a lot of money by producing entirely new color morphs. This allow you to sell snakes at very high prices to other breeders who want to be able to breed the strain in question.
You can make a very good living from investing in and breeding snakes. The same is true for a number of lizards and turtles. Turtles seem to be an up and coming market for anyone who wants to get in early into an market that might become as lucrative as the snake market (especially ball pythons) is right now.
The snake ladder!
It is possible to start investing in snakes with a small budget. You do not need to have a lot of money to invest in snakes. It is possible to start out by buying some relatively cheap snakes and then breed your way up the snake ladder. You do this by earning money from selling snakes to be able to buy ever more premium color morphs. You can also line breed your snakes to be able to get babies of more and more exclusive morphs. You can often read online how to produce a certain investor grade snake and follow those instructions to breed exclusive snakes yourself. Remember that a lot of the babies will be lower grade snakes that you can sell while keeping the best ones for your future breeding effort. It is common that only 25% of a clutch will produce the desired color morphs while the rest will have other genetics. I recommend that you read everything you can find about the genetics of the snake you want to invest in ( and other snakes. ) so that you are able to successfully achieve your goals and breed the morphs you want to breed.